I Needed More Motivation To Be Bad

Bioshock has succeeded. It has already garnered the level of cult status and it is a classic experience that all gamers should enjoy. Still, I have a tiny, tiny bit of a problem with the game that in no way hindered my original experience but I think could have given much more weight to the dilemma that the player is faced with early in the game. I hadn't even really thought about it too much until reading N'gai Croal and Stephen Totilo's face off. Croal writes:

My finger was hovering over the X button, ready to harvest...and all of a sudden, I couldn't do it. There was a little girl, albeit virtual, cowering in front of my avatar, and I couldn't bring myself to harvest her, as she'd been presented far too sympathetically. At the same time, I couldn't bring myself to rescue her either, because I wanted that Adam. Yet there was another complicating factor, one which is the true mark of the brilliance of BioShock's fiendish conundrum: the promise of an unspecified reward from Tenenbaum for rescuing the Little Sister.

What was puzzling me was the nature of Levine's game. He was pitting my basic humanity against my greedy self-interest and against my curiosity--a cruel hybrid of a moral dilemma fused with the Trust Game. This was a far more devilish problem than had it been a simple binary either/or, and it had completely paralyzed me. Should I treat this game as a Rorschach blot and do what I would do in real life: rescue the Little Sister? Or should I treat it solely as a fantasy and do precisely the opposite, explore the road I'd never take in the real world. I didn't know what to do.

While I totally hesitated in that moment over whether to save her for the promised reward or to put her out of her misery, the ADAM was never really a major draw at this point in the game. The game offers that if you do harvest the little sister, you will gain more ADAM for spending on plasmids, but does the player actually understand at this point what that means?

Our only experience up until this point in the game with plasmids in the electricity plasmid. It is very useful and fun but there is no hint at what comes with enhanced powers. You could use your imagination but it's easiest to see this power only becoming stronger. So what's the draw for more ADAM? Is it the desire to become as powerful as possible? Curiosity? I felt more sorry for her than anything, so I chose to save her.

Now, let's suppose that the game does something a little different the first time you inject yourself with a plasmid. You body has no idea how to react to this genetic mutation and you suddenly have a vast array of powers at your fingertips that is unstable (very similar to a sequence later in the game when you have an adverse reaction to an antidote). After experiencing all that ADAM can offer and its power, it is taken away from you only to be offered a way to get back by taking it from the little sisters. Like a drug, it has been taken from you and you now have a way to get back but at a terrible moral cost. Now here's a dilemma!

Now, while this borrows heavily from the Metroid formula, as well as adjusting the a bit of the story line, I think it would have added a lot more weight to the harvest/save problem. Now I wasn't the game designer and maybe they thought of this and thought the game was better their way. Either way, it is still an experience that transcends the norm.

Ode to Cut Scenes

God of War. Final Fantasy. Metal Gear Solid. Shadow of the Colossus. Resident Evil. Awesome games that have a common thread: they all have somewhat lengthy, pre-rendered cut scenes. While many people seem to hate them, I am in the minority that do not. Stephen Totilo on the MTV Multiplayer Blog, questions the following long standing belief:

Years ago — before it was in vogue to hate health bars and boss battles — it was cool to complain about cut-scenes. The flashy, melodramatic movies that appeared between chapters of game play undermined games by interrupting interactivity. They misrepresented the graphics in the games they were in. They told bad stories. They needed to be skipped, and, wouldn’t you know that the worst kind of cut-scene was one that an A or X button couldn’t eradicate in one tap.

So that's where the majority is coming from. But I have always felt that a really well executed cut scene was a reward at the end of that level I just completed. And these rewards just get better and better as the game crescendos up to a final climatic cut scene, gushing an orgasmic finale to an exquisite gaming experience.

My favorite example of this if God of War. Throughout the game the back story is beautifully told through artistic and stylized cut scenes that become available to watch in succession after completing the game, as if it were a movie. And it's a gorgeous movie at that, rivaling any animated movie not made by Pixar. I think God of War II lost the plot a bit in this department but still was quite impressive.

Stephen makes another great point, many of the greatest moments in gaming history have taken place in cut scenes. In addition to his great examples, there is Aeris's death in Final Fantasy VII and the Cyborg Ninja's hallway rampage in Metal Gear Solid. These are all pivotal moments that should not have been missed.

Moving forward, it is clear that developers are adopting a more interactive approach to cut scenes, like in Resident Evil 4. Also, as real time graphics rapidly approach what can be achieved in a pre-rendered scene, the lines will continue to blur, like in Bioshock or Heavenly Sword.

If there is one thing that games have yet to truly achieve on a regular basis is great story telling. Vivid cut scenes can fill that gap and, I for one, look forward to them. So, in the meantime, bring on the popcorn and watch some well earned cut scenes.

THQ: DS Past and Future

My first week at THQ was spent testing Ping Pals. In French and German. I'm surprised I made it past that week but fortunately I was snatched up by another team. For those who aren't laughing their ass off right now about my first testing gig, Ping Pals was an ill advised chat game that was no better than the DS's built in Pictochat. Although according to the project manager it was one of our greatest financial successes, it was met with ridicule and review scores averaging at about 0.5 out of ten. The developer, Way Forward, has gone to develop many DS titles and has two on the way that may the most anticipated games of the Holiday season barring Phantom Hourglass: Contra IV and Duck Amuck. In an interview a couple of weeks back with Stephen Totilo, creative director Matt Bozon explains some of the rationale that went behind that ill fated title.

They had just a handful of weeks to make the game. "We needed dev kits desperately, and here was a chance to get them."

But the problem with "Ping Pals" wasn't just time. The DS already had an IM program called "Pictochat" that came embedded into every DS. Did anyone raise their hand and ask about that? "I did that on day one," Bozon said, laughing. "THQ had their plan, and they were going to run with it.

This is quite typical of our philosophy but hey, we had a billion dollars in sales last year, so they must be doing something right.

One of those things right was picking up the publishing rights to Drawn to Life. It's an ambitious project that has the unfortunate timing of being released in one of the most crowded launch seasons ever. Hopefully people will still pick it up and encourage to take more chances like this and we can develop a sequel to smooth out some of the rough edges. In the mean time, check out the first official trailer. And yes, you can draw penises if that's your thing.

What Do I Want From a Wii Game?

The Wii offers a new ways to design and, ultimately, to play video games. Unfortunately, it has been a struggle that even, in my opinion, Nintendo has yet to over come. This week saw the release of EA's Boogie which has been met with some wildly varying reviews. Stephen Totilo at MTV's Multiplayer Blog took the chance to chat with the game's lead designer, Jean-Charles Gaudechon, and discuss his reaction to the reception the game has received.

When I see a 3 out of 10, I think it's people completely hermetic to it, just not getting it.

I understand his consternation, seeing as he has devoted a good chunk of his life to creating this game. However, from a gamer's point of view, the game is not an easy thing to understand. The game, on the surface, appears to be an amalgamation of two genre's: karaoke and DDR. The only problem is those two games seem to do the job better on their own and the combination is not like chocolate and peanut butter. I have yet to play the game, but I see a major problem with game play. The article states that the dev team had trouble linking Wii Remote moves with dance moves, and for very good reason. Dancing is a full body exercise, it's not just in the hands (at least not good dancing). I think a limitation of the Wii Remote is that it can only simulate certain actions and feel natural. Dancing is not one of them. This is where Boogie fails and DDR succeeds.

At the end of the article Stephen asks a series of questions that boils to: what makes a good Wii title? It got me thinking. I spend a good chunk of every day looking at our Wii titles and have been largely dissatisfied.

Firstly, graphics are important. The Wii is not and never will be able to display photorealism or compete with the 360 and the PS3 graphically. However, they still have the potential to look fantastic. The only stopping every game from looking as good, if not better, than games like Resident Evil 4, Okami, or God of War is budget. The importance in this area is to pick an art direction and run with it. Show some passion and dedication to the game's look. Don't just slap some assets together or reuse last year's. It's about making an impression and it does matter. I think Boogie succeeds here because they took a unique look and let it permeate throughout the game, like Katamari, Paper Mario or Rayman.

Controls has definitely been the make or break feature for Wii games. Unfortunately, it seems to break more games than not. The accelerometer and motion controls can only detect so many movements. Therefore, movements need to be kept simple or the effect is lost. Boogie and SSX Blur are good examples of this. They both seem to use complex combos of movement that aren't easily conveyed between the player and the game. But it is a balance, because if they are too simple, they appear tacked on and gimmicky. I would like to see my actions reflected on screen in a realistic, nearly, 1:1 ratio. This is why I think that only certain movements will translate. Swinging, pointing and slashing are examples of what have worked and what will work in the future. It is also an indication of the limitation of the system as they are motions along a single axis. Better designers than me will come up with special uses but only time will tell. The worst case scenario for Wii controls is when arm flailing will garner as much success as someone who is concentrating on the "correct" controls.

Designers on Wii games have an uphill battle. There are no easy solutions in this new paradigm for control schemes. Personally, I don't see too many good things on the near horizon from anyone but Nintendo, and I'm really not into too many of those games.